Young Songsters Keyed up by Rhymefest, Kanye Performing in Pilsen
In August of 2012, Donda’s House Inc. partnered with The ARK of St. Sabina to launch its pilot program “Got Bars,” and selected the best 30 out of the 500+ applicants, who were 15 -24-years-old to participate in high quality arts instruction. The students took three classes every week for 12 weeks. Che “Rhymefest” Smith […]
Retail Discrimination and Shopping While Black
Cafe Society and The Public Square put on some programs that challenge our assumptions and address issues that make civil society consider itself with an honest eye. This upcoming event asks us to consider racial profiling in the world of retail. Whatever you think, you won’t be bored if you make it to this session. The […]
Creating a Fashion Movement
From a phrase to a logo, and now, to a movement, No Manches Clothing Company wants to use its T-shirts to empower the Pilsen neighborhood. And this new vision, which was developed by four young Latino men, is already taking its effect as one local resident said, “I don’t wear T-shirts, but I wear his.”
CPS Opens S.O.A.R Center In Little Village To Lower High School Drop Out Rate
Chicago Public Schools opened a Student Outreach and Re-engagement center for the Pilsen and Little Village Community, to promote education among the largely Hispanic community. Michelle Murillo was transferred from Hubbard High School to Pathways alternative school because she was a senior who wasn’t going to graduate on time, she said. In Chicago, 44,000 Hispanic […]
“Diamond in the rough” folk art in Pilsen
Walking down the streets of Pilsen, it is common for one to come across many Mexican restaurants and varying trinket stores, each as authentic as the next. On 18th Street, Efrain Loza owns and manages Artesanias D’Mexico, a Mexican folk art and retail store. He brings the products directly from 14 different states in Mexico. […]
Struggle for safety: EPA commits to resolving Pilsen pollution
After being stonewalled by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railway company, the EPA will be seeking a warrant from the courts to clean up toxic land on the railway’s property that tested for lead content as high as 23,000 parts per million, the highest level of lead contamination seen in Pilsen yet and more than […]
Pilsen coffee shop brings neighborhood together
Café Jumping Bean is vibrantly colorful, with art all over its walls, chairs and tables. The smell of freshly brewed coffee – Café Jumping Bean’s own unique blend – lingers in the air. Located on the corner of 18th and Bishop streets, Café Jumping Bean has been serving the Pilsen community and surrounding areas for 19 […]
Del Corazon Festival returns to Museum of Mexican Art in Pilsen
The Del Corazon Festival at Pilsen’s National Museum of Mexican Art will include culinary arts, films and literature — “a ‘probadita,’ a little bit of everything.” The festival, scheduled to start in late August, will be curated by Jorge Valdivia, director of performing arts at the museum. Valdivia said he is particularly excited about the […]
Lead pollution in Pilsen takes new form
Every so often, Sallie Gordon, driving force behind the Growing Station Community Garden group in Pilsen, goes to an abandoned lot located near the garden between Peoria Street and Cullerton Street, only a block away from the Walsh School, to pick up trash. Gordon has taken it upon herself to take care of the small […]
Growing Station Community Garden in Pilsen focuses on water conservation
For the past two years, every April through September, 63 year-old Carlos Nunez, has been waking up early morning to go water his plants, monitor the garden for about two to four hours and returns after sunset to do it all again. Nunez, a Pilsen resident, is a volunteer garden monitor for the Growing Station Community […]
Video: Infinite Ripples of Peace March in Pilsen
On March 21, youth and members of the Pilsen community hung handmade prayer flags and walked for peace at the Infinite Ripples of Peace March, organized by ElevArte Community Studio. The march was part of Ten Thousand Ripples, a public art and peace project promoting peace in Chicago’s neighborhoods, created by a partnership between artist Indira […]
Chicago Latinos embrace first pope from Latin America
After the appointment of Pope Francis, the Catholic Church’s first Jesuit pope from Latin America, citizens of Chicago weigh in on what the appointment means to them.
Former Pilsen gang member works to improve community
In the 1960s and ’70s, he was a member of a notorious, Chicago gang, but today he can be heard along the main streets of Pilsen saying “God bless you,” to passersby. Raymond Gutierrez Jr. spends his time reaching out to communities with high crime rates to help decrease the violence in Chicago by inviting […]
Video: Aztec dreams on Pilsen’s walls
Murals are a Mexican art form. In Mexico, they were part of public art in state buildings. In Chicago, the art form continues, transformed by conditions today, and the messages the artists want to convey. Chicago murals are created outside, on walls around Pilsen. Shot and edited by Mathew Cunningham Music ”Aztec Dreaming” by Andrew […]
Changing face of Pilsen
In the 1990s, Pilsen was known as a neighborhood not safe to walk through at night, highlighted by the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority naming it a hot spot for gang violence in 1992. Now, just 20 years later, Pilsen is known as a trendy neighborhood, that residents say has been completely redefined by gentrification. […]
Pilsen: Neighborhood Home to ‘Greenest Street in America’
The Chicago Department of Transportation unveiled the Cermak/Blue Island Sustainable Streetscape on Oct. 9, 2012, which the city says is now “the greenest street in America.” “It’s the kind of thing we want to scale throughout the city,” said Karen Weigert, the chief sustainability officer of Chicago, citing the project’s attention to detail concerning water […]
Pilsen: Neighborhood Residents Defined By Religion, Beliefs
The steps and walls of Pilsen are covered in color. Murals of Mayan and Aztec mythology converge with images of family barbeques, local heros, and the Virgin Mary. One such mural is that of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a Mexican icon. Six hundred years ago in Mexico, when indigenous people weren’t allowed to enter the […]
Tea Gallery Owner in Pilsen Has New Plan For Shop
Necklaces, earrings, and bracelets sit on the left side of the window resting on glass jewelry displays, and on the right side of the window you’ll see pastries and crepes set on decorative food displays. This is the place where Omar Valencia chose to set up his shop. His multi-purpose space—Oxala—has been located at 1653 […]